Educational Comics

Definition

Comics and graphic novels have been used for several decades for the purpose of teaching people to understand and operate machinery or learn educational concepts. The educational comic as a teaching tool, in both professional and educational formats, has been part of the comic book field for years. Educators continue to find new ways to teach readers through comic book illustrations.

Introduction

From their inception, comic books and their long-form cousins, graphic novels, have served to entertain the masses. As the medium expanded in the late 1930s, comic books were derided by many as a poor form of entertainment. However, with the entry of the United States into World War II, the need to train military personnel quickly and effectively led to unorthodox methods. Any means of reaching the serviceman was explored. A 1942 study commissioned by the University of Chicago concluded that soldiers who read manuals that used visual explanations were seven times more likely to retain the material presented. If a soldier could remember basic principles taught in visual form, he could easily save his life on the battlefield.

After World War II, comics illustrations continued to be used in the military and civilian fields. Comic books were used to teach subjects ranging from literature to history and scientific principles. In the 1950s, Classics Illustrated was the leader in the market to reach readers in an educational context, and titles from that line often ranged across the social and hard sciences.

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, graphic novels were produced by companies in an attempt to capture the academic market. With more students being visually motivated than before, the graphic novel fits an expanding niche. Furthermore, as more graphic novels become popularized through film and television series adaptations, interest has grown in the novels they originated from. Films like V for Vendetta (2005) and series like The Walking Dead (2010) are examples of this. As publishing companies try to grow markets, new forms of education have evolved such that graphic novels are no longer merely fodder for poor readers but are actual learning tools for students of all ages and abilities.

Early Forms of Instruction

The comic book creator Will Eisner was one of the first people to experiment with comic illustrations as a teaching tool. While at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland in the early days of U.S. involvement in World War II, he used the series Joe Dope to teach soldiers about maintenance. These single-panel illustrations were not sequential in format. Self-contained stories for civilians included titles such as USA is Ready and Our Army and Our Navy. They told readers how to identify Allied and enemy aircraft, hold scrap-metal drives, or administer first aid.

Military books that used comics to tell stories or morals included the Coast Guard book Adventure Is My Career, written by Captain America creator Joe Simon, and the U.S. Marine Corps’ Tokyo Straight Ahead. The former told of the history and purpose of the Coast Guard and, most importantly, how the Coast Guard was a proper branch of the armed forces. Tokyo Straight Ahead was written to teach soldiers how to adapt to the reality of combat. One story depicted Marines shooting surrendering Japanese soldiers, only to see that the surrender was a ruse and the Japanese soldiers were hiding weapons on them. This seeming cruelty was born out of battles, and the stories taught lessons that would keep an American soldier alive in battle. The military stories often used humor to teach a deadly subject. These titles were a substantial contribution to the field of educational comics at the time.

Education After the Comics Code

The postwar accusations that comics corrupt American youth also affected the way that comics were written. By the 1950s, the industry adopted the Comics Code, which noted that comics should be used for moral purposes. At the same time, many comic book publishers realized that comics could educate readers in a positive manner.

The use of comics to teach soldiers proved worthwhile to the extent that the U.S. Army published a booklet entitled PS Preventative Maintenance Monthly. While not a graphic novel in the full extent, it relied heavily on specific characters and copious illustrations to demonstrate maintenance on vehicles and weapons. It was meant as a supplementary text to the standard military maintenance manuals. Eisner continued to illustrate and edit this book, and in 1971, he was replaced by another comic book legend, Joe Kubert.

The troops particularly benefited from these illustrations because parts and procedures could be drawn in ways that photographs could not effectively or accurately demonstrate. The pinnacle of Eisner’s work was the 1969 manual on the maintenance of the M16A1 battle rifle. The booklet was small but effective in terms of conveying what needed to be done to maintain a weapon in combat.

Like propaganda comic books, educational comics and graphic novels were also used to indoctrinate children and readers about concepts such as communism. Is This Tomorrow?, an anti-Communist propaganda comic book published in 1947 by the Catholic Catechetical Guild Educational Society of St. Paul, Minnesota, is one example. Graphic novels were also used to refute the argument prevalent in the 1950s that comics were the first step toward degeneracy. Classics Illustrated published many famous literary works in a simple, visually assisted form. While some critics charged that this detracted from the actual book, the publishers responded by saying that reading Classics Illustrated novels was the first step, and readers would then want to read the actual books.

Embracing the New Medium

The most prolific American writer of educational comics is Larry Gonick. He first utilized comics in an educational format in 1977, with the book Blood from a Stone: A Cartoon Guide to Tax Reform. Soon after, he started producing graphic novels that dealt with various topics, including a Cartoon History of the Universe (1977-1992), as well as books that covered topics ranging from statistics to physics to sex. His work is still reproduced through various publishers and serves as a model for other companies. Most of Gonick’s work was published in the 1990s, when other companies were expanding their production into the graphic novels field.

The DC Comics imprint Paradox Press has told history through illustration. While its most successful comics focus on crime (Road to Perdition, 1998) or are manga reprints (Gon, 1992-2002), the series The Big Book of . . . (1994-2000) centers on lesser-known historical aspects of real life and events. The series utilized little-known history or myth as a way to inform readers of a general subject. These comics were popular enough that the series totaled seventeen books. While the books did spark an interest in the odd aspects of history, their true legacy extended well past the series. Many of the artists in the Big Book of . . . series also worked on their own historical graphic novels. Rick Geary contributed to the Paradox publications and produced several of his own graphic novels of various figures from the Victorian era of crime, from Jack the Ripper to the first documented serial killer in American history, Herman Mudgett.

Teaching People to Interpret Comics

Educators have increasingly sought to reach students through a variety of media. Graphic novels have become one way of expanding discussions and reading in the classroom. However, many people either had the misconceived notion of comics as having poor stories and character development or thought that the graphic novel was not appropriate.

Two writers published books to explain the medium and its impact. Eisner’s Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative (1996) broke down the basic components of the comics story, as well as the symbolism of weaponry or shading. His book has been used by those teaching basic comic book appreciation. A more substantial book that discusses the use of comics in a wider academic role is Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993). His book details why the medium is not merely pictures and how it uses imagination to accurately tell stories in a wider concept. The success of this book allowed McCloud to write a follow-up, Reinventing Comics, in 1999.

Graphic novels have also become a way to teach modern aspects of literature and history. Joe Sacco infused the comics medium with aspects of classic journalism. His works center on areas of conflict and include Palestine (1993-1995), Safe Area Goražde (2000), The Fixer (2003, 2005), and Footnotes in Gaza (2009).

Political comics include Silk Road to Ruin (2006) and To Afghanistan and Back (2002) by Ted Rall. Macedonia (2007), by Harvey Pekar, Heather Roberson, and Ed Piskor, recounts how the United Nations looked at eliminating the violence in the Balkans through peaceful means. A graphic novel that tells of political malfeasance is Brought to Light (1989), which was published by the Christic Institute. The writers described how U.S. intervention in Central America under the Ronald Reagan administration (1981-1989) led to several acts of terrorism.

Education in Schools

Many companies that specialize in textbooks for children have expanded into graphic novels as a way to teach young readers the stories of the United States. Some companies have turned to specific aspects to find their niche. For example, Puffin Graphics, a Penguin imprint, specializes in retelling the classics of literature, from graphic novels of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) to a manga version of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1623). Osprey Graphic Novels specializes in battles of American history from the Civil War and World War II. Its twelve-title series was written by several famous comic book writers, including Larry Hama of GI Joe: A Real American Hero (1982-1994) fame. Rosen has published biographies of famous historical figures, from Abraham Lincoln and George Washington to Harriet Tubman, Sitting Bull, and Spartacus. It also published a series that dealt with the unexplained (creatures like aliens and places like the Bermuda Triangle) and world mythology.

Other books have tried to teach or, at least, distill the basic aspects of American history or science into simple forms. Graphic novels in this area include the Stuff of Life (2008) on genetics, Gonick’s works on science and history, and Jim Ottaviani’s biographies of scientists (Suspended in Language, 2004, on physicist Niels Bohr, and Dignifying Science, 2003, on famous female scientists).

Robert Crumb reentered the graphic novels field with a version of the Old Testament. One history-based graphic novel, A People’s History of American Empire (2008; based on historian Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of America, 1980) sought to tell of the abuses of American society in an illustrated format. Paul Buhle and a group of collaborators used their talents to tell of the history of the Industrial Workers of the World in Wobblies! (2005). Finally, Hill and Wang took the bold step of using the graphic novel format to tell the facts of September 11, 2001 (9/11) with its book the 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation (2006), which was followed by After 9/11: America’s War on Terror (2001- ) (2008). Some companies have tried to reintroduce historical figures through comics, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Che Guevara, J. Edgar Hoover, or Reagan. Others have taken classic novels and turned them into graphic novels as a way to reinvent and reintroduce canonical works of fiction. Books like George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937), and William Golding's Lord of the Flies (1954) have all been transformed into graphic novels with notable success and are used in schools throughout the United States as an alternative means of teaching classical literature.

Other writers have used the graphic novel medium as a means of conveying their story to readers with a visual component that adds an additional layer of connection. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (2004) by Marjane Satrapi, for example, introduced readers to a young protagonist growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and the war with Iraq. The stark black and white drawings in a childlike hand allow readers to follow Marjane's personal coming-of-age in a simple yet striking manner. Though the book has been banned in some schools, it has also been taught in many others and has received critical acclaim. Another such example is George Takei's They Called Us Enemy (2019), which chronicles Takei's experience as a prisoner in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. Both books have been used for their unique and impactful perpectives on coming-of-age during periods of conflict and war.

Impact

While the comics medium has been derided by some as weakening the field of literature, others have seen comics as a way to communicate basic concepts and as springboards to reading literary masterpieces. The educational potential of comics is vast, as demonstrated by the number of companies that have expanded to publish some form of educational comics. Whether this trend can be sustained is debatable. Nonetheless, the graphic novel has already shown its educational worth.

Bibliography

Carter, James Bucky, ed. Building Literary Connections with Graphic Novels: Page by Page, Panel by Panel. Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English, 2007.

Cavender, Bailey. "The Case for Graphic Novels in the Classroom." The Educators Room, 4 Apr. 2020, theeducatorsroom.com/the-case-for-graphic-novels-in-the-classroom-2/. Accessed 6 Sept. 2024.

Eisner, Will. Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994.

Sabin, Roger. Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels. London: Phaidon, 2001.

Wolk, Douglas. Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2007.

Wright, Nicky. The Classic Era of American Comics. London: Prion Books, 2009.